Was there more to it than just a Carry On?
Aug 11 2008 by Peter Elson, Liverpool Daily Post
HAVING got rid of the children to Scout camps, we practised for empty nest syndrome by watching Carry On Camping on the telly.
This was probably shown, I’ve since discovered, as it’s the 50th anniversary of the Carry On films, one of the most successful (and most cheaply made) film series of all time. They’re firmly based on deeply unpretentious British music hall comedy and the saucy vulgarity of Donald McGill seaside postcards.
What struck me was how much Britain changed since Camping was made in 1969 – already the 17th in a series begun in 1958 with Carry On Sergeant. Thanks to false media memory syndrome, the 1960s are universally regarded as a time when everyone was getting it down at the Isle of Wight pop festival, sporting an Afro like Jimi Hendrix, and attending happenings right and left (mainly the latter). In fact, having lived through the 1960s and able to remember it, this was a time when the mainstream preferred watching the Black and White Minstrel Show, whose very title is now regarded as beyond the pale. Not even the paler shade of white.
Carry On Camping climaxes with an open-air rave-up starring a funky band called The Flowerbuds. The Carry On stalwarts, led by Kenneth Williams, Sid James, Bernard Bresslaw, Joan Sims and Hattie Jacques break it up by squirting liquid manure over the participants and fusing the amps. This is what the core Carry On audience wanted. Saucy innuendo, ghastly puns, predictable farce, slapstick and Barbara Windsor’s bra flying off during aerobics – yes. Long-haired weirdos and loud electric guitar music – no.
A friend recently suggested that Carry On films were far more representative of Britain during their run of 29 films from 1958 to 1978 (plus a final gasp in 1992) than so-called more realistic shows such as Radio 4’s The Archers. These, by attempting to be contemporary and relevant, suffer the political correctness of more media manipulation through an array of minority group characters who are really out of place in a typical country village.
The success of the Carry Ons proves what a deeply conservative country Britain is. However, they also crucially portray our subversive element, cocking a snook at the class system, the “Old Boy” network and the welfare state.
Many comics like Terry Scott, Frankie Howerd and Richard Wattis appeared in only a few Carry Ons, but were so effective they became permanently linked in people’s minds.
Amanda Barrie only appeared in two, Cabby and Cleo. Such was the popularity of the latter that I recall not being able to get into the Runcorn Empress Cinema (where I saw many of these films) during Cleo’s re-release, such was the queue for seats.
Special mention must be made of Cleo’s dialogue by the later series’s writer, Talbot Rothwell. Ken Williams squawking: “Infamy, infamy “they’ve all got it in for me” is regarded by colleague David Charters as a line worthy of our greatest comedy writers (it has been voted as the best film comedy line of all time).
Cleo showcased another Carry On staple, the parody, in this case of the Burton-Taylor 1963 blockbuster, Cleopatra, and reused many of the latter’s sets.
Another favourite of mine, Carry On Screaming, parodied Hammer Horror films. The moment I treasure is the Morticia-like Fenella Fielding (who still possesses the sexiest voice on the planet) after union with Harry H Corbett purring: “Do you mind if I smoke?” Clouds then start seeping from the folds of her voluminous garments.
The 1973 film, Carry On Girls, also featured Robin Askwith as a gormless youth who curiously enjoyed great success with the opposite sex. A few years later, he starred in the much coarser Confessions series which undermined the Carry On series with blatant nudity (hitherto promised but never delivered) and double entendres abandoned for the single variety.
Dominic Sandbrook, the social historian, sums up what’s been lost in Britain along with the Carry Ons.
He wrote: “We are a more open, honest, tolerant society, but not necessarily a more civilised or polite one.”
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